Recently, after the outbreak of the coronavirus in Wuhan, Hubei Province, Shenzhen also  found a case of severe pneumonia of unknown origin. The government announced on Sunday (January 12) that the possibility of SARS and a coronavirus infection have been ruled out. However, due to the authorities’ manner of epidemiological investigation, coupled with the opaqueness of government information, the people’s distrust has continued to spread.

A hospital in Shenzhen issued a notice Sunday about a 41-year-old female patient who is of Indian nationality and teaches at a local international school. The notice stated that, after Shenzhen did some testing, CDC, influenza, bird flu, SARS, Middle East respiratory syndrome, and the new coronavirus that was recently discovered in Wuhan have been ruled out.

To this end, Radio Free Asia called the hospital in question, but the doctor declined to be interviewed on the grounds that the situation was unclear. The local district health bureau in Shenzhen said that the above-mentioned pathogens have been ruled out, but it did not say that it was a new type of pneumonia; it was just a case of severe pneumonia. At present, the pathogen of this severe pneumonia case does not have a clear target, so it is not possible to sequence the pathogen genetically. The only conclusion is that it is a severe pulmonary infection. The official also said that, due to the rapid development of the disease, screening was performed for several known conditions. He was not sure that they belonged to a specific disease.

In order to achieve social control, the Chinese government controls important information releases, including any animal epidemic disclosures. Thus this has, by law, been classified as a state secret. Based on the logic of maintaining stability, concealment of information about the epidemic has become the norm. The government’s concealment of the SARS epidemic in 2003 led to catastrophic consequences.

Source: Radio Free Asia, January 13, 2020
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/cn-shenzhen-01132020101348.html

Radio Free Asia (RFA) Chinese Edition recently reported that, based on the numbers that the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics released, as of November, provincial governments had across the board deficits, including some wealthy provinces. Even Shanghai, the most financially sound city, had a deficit of RMB 40 billion (around US$5.8 billion). Beijing had a deficit of over RMB 100 billion. The worst cases were Sichuan and Henan provinces. Each had a deficit that was five times that of Beijing’s. Several provincial governments have already issued internal orders to reduce spending immediately. The city of Shenzhen (part of Guangdong Province) which is not yet on the deficit list, is also cutting government spending drastically. Most of the items on the budget were forced to take a minimum ten percent cut. In practice, however, many local government branches have found it really hard to reduce spending. Some have even requested budget increases.

Source: RFA Chinese, January 10, 2020
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/Xinwen/wul0110b-01102020042302.html

United Daily News (UDN), one of the primary Taiwanese news groups, recently reported that commercial real estate, especially office buildings, have been suffering the highest vacancy rates lately across all Chinese major cities. According to data that China Finance Online (NASDAQ: JRJC) provided, the city of Shenzhen suffered a top-tier office building vacancy rate of 22.4 percent in the third quarter of 2019. In some areas the vacancy rate reached 50 percent. In the first half of 2019, in the most valuable locations of Shenzhen, the vacancy rate, at one point, reached 65.7 percent. For decades, Shenzhen has been the most rapidly growing Chinese city. For Q3 of 2019, the vacancy rate for Beijing was 19.5 percent and it was 10.9 percent in Shanghai. For the same period of time, it was 4.8 percent, 4 percent, 3.8 percent and 0.7 percent for Singapore, London, San Francisco and Tokyo, respectively. Analysts expressed the belief that the US-China trade war was the issue. The result was that, in major Chinese cities, a large number of companies have held back from renting offices. Second-tier cities suffered more. Key provincial capital cities typically saw office buildings having average vacancy rates above 30 percent.

Source: UDN, January 8, 2020
https://opinion.udn.com/opinion/story/120611/4275380

The Epoch Times listed ten high-tech companies in China that may face a boycott in the world in 2020, due to their colluding with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and violating citizen’s human rights.

1. Huawei, the long arm of the CCP with a strong connection to China’s military.
2. WeChat, which has become a tool for the CCP to monitor, control, and suppress the Chinese people.
3. Hikvision, which exports its AI and facial recognition technology and monitoring equipment to the entire world.
4. DJI drones, which might steal data and take aerial photographs. Its users operate the drone to take pictures and gather information which they then pass on to the CCP’s intelligence organ.
5. TikTok, which collects user’s data and sends it back to its headquarters in China.
6. CRRC Group, which offered a “super low” price to bid on mass commuter rail contracts in the U.S.
7. BYD, which sells electric buses in the U.S., while receiving both a CCP subsidy on the manufacturing automotive end and a U.S. subsidy on selling the automotive part (double-dipping).
8. SenseTime, an AI technology company that offers facial recognition technology to the monitoring system of the CCP’s police.
9. Megvii, an AI technology company that offers facial recognition technology to the monitoring system of the CCP’s police.
10. YITU Technology, an AI technology company that offers facial recognition technology to the CCP’s police.

Source: Epoch Times, December 30, 2019
http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/19/12/30/n11755421.htm

On December 13, 2019, the School of Applied Economics at Renmin University of China published a report called, “An Analysis of the Impact of the Sino-U.S. Trade War on Employment.” The analysis surveyed 800 companies in three well developed provinces in China, including Guangdong, Fujian, and Zhejiang. There was a burst in exports in early 2018 after the U.S. announced that it would increase tariffs. Then a year later, the exports dropped significantly.

However, unemployment did not increase sharply. The analysis reported that many local governments have provided policies to keep the employment rate stable. For example, they refunded the company’s social security payments if it did not lay off employees, offered employment subsidies, or deferred the increase in the minimum wage. Some companies also reduced their employee’s work hours instead of reducing the employee headcount.

The report called this “sacrificing employment quality for a temporary stabilization of employment, or a hidden unemployment. If the U.S. continues to increase tariffs to the point that it forces companies to stop manufacturing, then many companies will take the staff reduction option.

The report also showed that, though the trade war created challenges to companies, the companies’ largest pressure came from within China; financing, environmental protection, land, and other costs are too high for companies to bear. Thus, even if there were no trade war, companies would still be struggling.

Source: Pincong.rocks website, December 16, 2019
https://pincong.rocks/article/10978